A steam tractor sculpture built out of rusty barrels, corrugated roofing panels and steel wagon wheels stand outside the front door of Functional Junk Salvage.

It is a sample of the collection that sits in the upcycling store located on the corner of West Fifth Ave. at Kittitas Street. Inside, the smell of wood, paint and rust wafts toward the entrance.

Songs like “Wild Things” or “What I like About You” play in the background along with an industrial heater that hums steadily from the ceiling.

Daniel Morton, a 30-year-old man, stands at the front desk, scrolling through his smartphone and answering the occasional phone call. “Is there anything [specific] you’re looking for?” he asks each person who walks in.

Although there are some vintage items like china, a jewelry box, old cameras and even a piano, Morton, who co-owns the store with his mother, Jacque Stanley, says their main focus is to upcycle discarded or donated items that they see potential of being used for something else. They have repaired and upcycled up to 6,000 items in the past two years of its opening.

“Our country’s really wasteful,” Morton said. “I see so much go into the garbage when you can repair it and reuse it for something else.”

Stanley said around the months of May to June, she sees a lot of students moving out and throwing things away.

“We should all respect our resources and if possible, keep it out of the dumpster,” Stanley said. “We love history, and it’s sad to think that if we didn’t [repurpose] these items, they would’ve ended up on the dump.”

Morton and Stanley are a car mechanic and a carpenter respectively, and they use their trades to repair or repurpose furniture and other items in the store. Things that can be easily found on the curb, the scrap metal yard or Craigslist, which Morton said he sometimes monitors, can be put together to create something new.

“That used to be 5-gallon paint can,” Morton said, as he points to a metal barrel with wooden table legs, an empty film reel, two handles on its sides and a door in the middle. It is now a table and a storage cabinet with a price tag that reads $120.

Morton said he enjoys the “mixing and matching” of different textures and characteristics of each object.

“The rust paint is popular,” Morton said, pointing to a couple of rusty mannequin heads.  He said it appeals to people because of the vintage look.

He does the metalwork and welding, and his mother does the woodwork and painting. Morton and Stanley also give each other critiques and ideas on how to make something better.

Stanley said that an idea for repurposing an object comes to her as an inspiration.

“It might sound strange, but sometimes [an object] tells me what it wants to be,” Stanley said. “It’s already made in my head.”

Functional Junk Salvage opened two years ago in spring 2017, in a building that once used to be a Kittitas County Dairymen’s Association creamery in the 1930s to 1950s. Since then, it’s been a karate dojo and a furniture store among other things.

Morton said he and his mother had been looking at the building for some years when they only had a booth at Hidden Treasures, a store just around the block that also sells vintage and antique items.

“We were saving up to buy our own [building],” Stanley said.

Now, they have up to 10 vendors that rent a space and sell their goods. One of the vendors called Re-Purposed Metal, run by Michael Ziegan, makes drums and gongs out of air tanks, skull cast arts out of melted aluminum, and more.

It takes several walks around the store to take notice of each object. A large Paladino chandelier looms over a vintage bird cage placed on a small table, a pair of wooden snowshoes hangs on the wall, a Campbell’s Soup crock pot rests on a shelf and many repainted chairs and lamps are found throughout the store.

In another room partitioned off, there are boxes containing wooden parts of all sizes, empty wine bottles and rosette plates. Huge industrial light heads lean on one side of the wall.

A middle-aged man in a black Under Armour cap walked in and strolled through the store. He pointed to a large projector in the back and asked, “Is this on sale?” Unfortunately, it wasn’t, but it brought up a memory for the man. “We used to have it in high school,” he said.

There is a story attached to each thing in the room, small or big. Morton recalled one day, when a 40 to 50-year-old man on a motorcycle stopped by the store to look around and recognized a foot-shaped gas pedal that he had made when he was in middle school on the Westside.

It had been among other items in a box at the store. Sure enough, his initials were carved in the hand-casted pedal, and it was given to him for free.

More often, customers come in for something they have in mind. Ellensburg locals Joy Lessard and Patt Stevenson entered to browse through the store.

“I’m looking for something painted or adjusted in some way,” Lessard said. She said she enjoys looking at repurposed items that have been “given new life.”

“I’m on the hunt for a lid that’ll go well with my white porcelain pot,” Stevenson said. She said she is attracted to the rustic type of furnishing.

“It’s fun to look around, it’s kind of a hobby,” Stevenson said.